“The dissolution of the HEC will cause irreparable loss to higher education and research programmes in the country,” Ahsan Iqbal, MNA, said while addressing a press conference here at the party’s office. Ahsan was member of the parliamentary committee that prepared the draft of the 18th Amendment.

He pointed out that if the decision to do away with the HEC was not withdrawn, it would mean that parliament wanted to exact revenge from the commission over the fake degrees issue. He recalled that in view of severe shortage of PhD scholars in the country, the government in 1999 initiated a programme of international scholarship under the Vision 2010. “The programme was meant to provide the country’s science and technology sector with highly qualified manpower,” he said. He said that General Musharraf stopped this programme but Dr. Attaur Rehman restarted it and raised an independent institution like the HEC, which in the last eight years produced thousands of PhD people.

Ahsan Iqbal told newsmen that the PML-N had recorded its dissenting note on the issue of the HEC during the parliamentary committee’s meeting dealing with the 18th Amendment.